And so again, my October month-long marathon post-athon of posting everyday is coming to an abrupt end. As usual, I’m here to tell you again why I did it and what I got out of it. Because that’s how these wrap up things work. See the previous years’ 2015 here, 2014 here, and here is the intro to the first time in 2013.

Like many, I can get to telling myself lies about how I don’t have enough. Time is the biggest resource I can convince myself I’m lacking although it’s really fear of success I’m feeling. So this self-imposed torture/yearly practice of posting every day of October pretty much dispels that lie, short and sweet. I manage to post every loving day, keep my kids and my house fairly tidy, and do other stuff like creativity challenges and have a social life too.

There’s a Jewish parable, a tale I’ve spoken of before in last years wrap-up, where the man complains about having too much mayhem in his house. So his rabbi tells him to bring in the chickens. Then the goat. Then the cows. And finally, he tells the man to go ahead and move them all out. And then asks him how things are now. He says great. It’s all about creating the perspective. ( See the story here. )

I am amazed that I get away with this every year. That the amount of subjects and creativity keeps coming out of me endlessly seems miraculous. But then creativity flourishes within confines. So I have just about shown myself again how much of a super woman I am and how I can pull off anything I put my mind to.

So here’s to another month of Sundays gone by and a Happy Halloween to end my month-long gauntlet on. Let it be Spooktacular and Funny Fun Fun!!!

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

My Souls Selfie Challenge just finished up. A week of prompts with the intention of sparking a little more thought about what we are and think and feel. It was a little less scary for me this time because I knew the people joining me wanted me to do this again. And I’m always glad to oblige people when they want to do soul-work.

When you add many people’s energies and soul thoughts into a collective pot, you certainly have a meatier stew to chew. Read and see the first three posts here. Here are Thursday/Nostalgia, Friday/Trust, Saturday/Weight-wait, and Sunday’s/Night posts. If you are on Instagram, you only need to tap the hashtag #Soul_Selfie and you can see the whole page of marvelous posts devoted to introspection and self-love.

So ends my second Soul Selfie Instagram photo challenge. I’m left feeling full and happy with the connections we’ve made, the inner work that we put ourselves to. We’ve nudged and budged, listened and inspired eachother as a community is apt to do and I am certain we’ll do it again. Word is, I’m thinking about February. So perhaps February, May, and October are all good months to clear out our inner cobwebs, own our stuff, and move along.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

Back in May, I dared to lead my very first Soul Selfie photo challenge on Instagram because I wanted to give a voice to people to hear what they needed to say to themselves. It was a great success and I promised all the participants that I would do it again in the fall. So here I am doing this once again with the amazing group of people on Instagram that I call friends.

When I see all of these amazing people joining in to the challenge, I know that there is a need for us to all create a safe place for our words to be heard. Instagram has been that for me like no other place. And even after I’ve healed so many of the things that need healing, I hope I will always find respite and a place to feel out my feelings here.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

It all started with a creative week in August. I pulled out my pastels I’d always been intending to use and did a little dabbling. And a light went off in my head. Why couldn’t I put myself to a month of creativity straight, ask to be accountable to my online tribe and at the end I’d have a creative habit! Well let me tell you, I have a whole lot more than that. I have proof of Our Creative September!

Shannon Faris-Parnell

Right as I was announcing that I was about to launch My creativity challenge September, I had a lovely lady as me if she could join in. Sure I said, thinking this would be cool to have company. And then another woman asked to join. Of course I said, do you think we need a hashtag?

Shannon Faris-Parnell

What transpired after that was pure pagic as a small group of us gathered encouragement and inspiration from each other, creating daily under the hashtag #OurCreativeSeptember. So unexpected, so yummy, so community.

Tracy’s Pottery

Tracy’s pottery

As each week went by and I did my round-ups, I spoke of what it was that I had gotten out of the challenge thus far. The first week, this is what I said,”In making the practice non-negotiable, you begin to build a trust with yourself. Anxieties stand down and make room for you to express and devote to yourself through your challenge.” I began to be less critical and more open to what might happen.

Jax Blunt

Jax Blunt

Week two, I was astonished at the change.”This daily arting endeavor is changing me. I knew it would. I just had to commit to allowing for it to change me. I used to use creativity as a thing to torture my inner child with mean “No you can’t go out and play until you eat your broccoli” kinda stuff. And my inner child was kept from her one true love, seeing what she could make. And then being proud of herself.”

all seeking the same thing.
choosing different storylines to get there.
speaking different spells to create the experience.
all seeking the same thing.
all have a vision
a dream
all seeking the same thing
all on a mission to find the happiness + love we came here to remember

be wonderful
♡
LaToya

Fi Cooper

Fi Cooper

Week three brought a larger ease to my everyday.”Having moved through the cloud of resistance, I am now stepping into create mode very quickly. As a given now, I don’t have to grapple with “if”. As for the when of the creating, I try to think and not think about it. Like if you talk about going to a movie too much, you’ll talk yourself right out of going. The creativity needs to be both slightly spontaneous and slightly planned.”

Latoya Burton

Lynzelle

As if these weren’t lessons enough, I also got the gift of camaraderie and company from all the other women who joined in. We had a ceramicist, collage artists, watercolorists, scrapbookers, and sketch artists. I developed a newfound confidence in my pastel work and started a mix medium series of watercolored encyclopedia pages with pasteled bugs that seems to be a community favorite. We were all finding our strides and our self pride and that was the Magic.

Ilana Kapp

Ilana Kapp

So we’ve decided to continue our daily creative efforts together with a new hashtag of #OurCreativeSelves on Instagram . If you were to search that tag there, you’d see what we’ve been up to and you could take an opportunity to cheer us on and be inspired. We’d like that.

Shalagh Hogan

I thank all my fellow creatives and everyone who cheered us on during our month of making. We’ll continue onward in our heroic creative journeys knowing you get what it means.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

My official Our Creative September wrap up will be posting on Tuesday October 4th, with art from everyone. But I thought perhaps it would be nice to show you my art that came from this last week and make this a mostly pictures Sunday.

Remember, this month there’s a post every day. 31 days straight of posts on Shalavee! So I encourage you to sign up for my blog to be emailed to you so you don’t miss anything along the way. And on Instagram, I’m continuing creating every day under the hashtag #ourcreativeselves .

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter orPinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a toddler, a tween, and my five year-old blog and I turned 50 this year. My hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.

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